Sharing the Virtual Mosaic and Guest Contributions

Virtual Mosaic is where a mosaic stops being something guests watch and becomes something they take away. Guests open a link, explore the wall, find their own tile, and share it -- and they can contribute photos directly from their phones.

Everything here is configured in the Virtual Mosaic tab of the PMWall template. It requires the Virtual Mosaic account add-on.

Guest Contributions

Contributions let guests upload straight into the mosaic, with no capture hardware on site. Combined with a QR code, that is a complete activation.

Enable Allow contributions, then configure the form. Each field has its own visibility, required flag, label, placeholder, and maximum length:

• Your name -- Shown with the tile when Show "Added by {name}" is on.
• Story -- A short caption. Shown in the tile dialog when Show story in tile dialog is on.
• Photo -- Always visible and always required.
• Email -- Needed for notifications.
• Phone -- Needed for SMS notifications.

Only require what you genuinely need. Every required field costs you submissions, and a mosaic works better full.

Consent

Three separate consents, each independently configurable:

• Terms -- With your own link text and URL. Can be required.
• Marketing -- Kept separate from participation, with its own default state.
• Notifications -- Whether the guest wants to be told when their photo appears.

Keep marketing consent separate from taking part. A guest should be able to join the mosaic without opting into anything else, and mixing the two is both poor practice and a compliance risk.

Upload Handling

• Accepted MIME types -- Default JPEG, PNG, and WebP.
• Max size -- Default 8 MB.
• Final tile size, JPEG quality, and Honor EXIF rotation.
• Crop strategy -- Attention (smart), Center, or Entropy. Attention is the default and generally the right choice, since it keeps the interesting part of the photo.

Leave EXIF rotation on. Without it, photos taken in portrait on a phone can arrive sideways.

Moderate Public Uploads

Anything guests can upload to a large public display should be reviewed first.

Enable Enable moderation in PMWall under Settings > Runtime, then approve or reject from the Queue Management tab. Photos wait until approved before they can be placed.

Assign someone to this for the whole event, and agree the rejection criteria with the client in advance. See PMWall Queue Management and Moderation.

Notifications and Deep Links

Notifications tell a guest when their photo has appeared.

• Enable notifications -- Off by default.
• When to send -- After tile is visible on the wall is the default and the better choice: it tells the guest something has actually happened. Immediately on upload only confirms receipt.
• Email and SMS channels.
• URL template -- The link the guest receives, which can open the mosaic at their own tile.
• Animate to tile on open -- Flies the view to their tile when they follow the link.

The deep link is what makes the mosaic shareable. A guest who receives a link that lands directly on their own face in a wall of thousands will share it; one who receives a link to the wall's front page usually will not.

Send notifications only where consent has been given, or where your event's privacy workflow otherwise allows it.

Sharing from the Wall

Viewers can open any tile and share it. On devices that support it, this uses the native share sheet; elsewhere the link is copied to the clipboard.

Enable Search bar so guests can find their own tile by name, if you collect names. Non-matching tiles dim rather than disappear, so the found tile stands out against the whole wall -- which is the moment worth sharing.

Presenting the Wall

For an unattended screen, enable auto-pop so the mosaic highlights tiles on a rotation, and consider Story Mode to focus that rotation on flagged tiles such as contest winners.

Auto-pop must be running for Story Mode to do anything.

For a public link, keep the interface simple: header and search on, operator controls off.

Privacy

Names, stories, and contact details are guest data.

• Show contributor names and stories only where guests expect it.
• Confirm the display settings match what your consent text promised.
• For sponsor and brand activations, agree in advance what appears on screen.
• Remove test submissions before the event goes live.

Read Next

• Configuring PMWall Virtual Mosaic in Foto Master Cloud
• Virtual Mosaic Viewing Modes
• PMWall Queue Management and Moderation